WINDOWS

 At different points in time, I looked out from different windows. The last two photos show past views from the window where I now live. The tree has been removed. The snow remains in winter.

Haiku:

Through a lens long gone

There was magic in the view

Past is so quisquous

Helen Weaver, an encore

an encore, from April 2010:

Shortly after I read the heartfelt and bittersweet memoir, "The Awakener," I connected with Helen Weaver. I was enthralled with her memories of her love affair with Jack Kerouac. We began to communicate in E-mails... and today, I am happy to call Helen my friend.

Helen met Jack Kerouac in November 1956, when at 7:00 on a Sunday morning he arrived with Allen Ginsberg at her apartment in 307 West 11th Street. This is a photo of that building that I took after I read the book. Helen was delighted with the photo, and she told me her window can be seen on the left, right behind the blue balloon.

ETA: Helen Weaver passed away on April 13, 2021.

Robert Siegel, writer/director

UPDATE in an encore, from May 2009:

This interview with Robert began on a Thursday evening at a Chelsea diner. And we concluded the interview the following day, on a muggy Friday Manhattan night in the same diner. So, this was my first two-part interview. I was excited and happy.

Robert was editor-in-chief of "The Onion" from 1996 to 2003... when it was in it's original phase as a Madison, Wisconsin publication. The editor of "The Onion" when Robert arrrived was Ben Karlin, who later left to join "The Daily Show" as executive producer. He was followed by David Javerbaum, who is still the executive producer of "The Onion" and he wrote the music for the Broadway show, "Crybaby."

In 2001, "The Onion" moved to new headquarters in New York City. And shortly thereafter Robert began writing "The Wrestler." Robert explained that the process of creating a film is a long one. It can sometimes take five years from "script to screen." But Robert knew from the beginning that Mickey Rourke was "ideal" for this film and he wrote "The Wrestler" with Mickey Rourke in mind. Robert knew he would be just perfect for this part. Robert wanted to create a compelling character and story. Yet, he realizes the story is both sad and emotional. And throughout, there are many scenes in the film that show the character's great and extreme loneliness with moments of so much sweetness.

The audience knows at the end of the film that "The Ram" will not last long after he makes a decision to go back into the ring. He has made a decision to die. It was the director's decision to end the film with a freeze frame... to perhaps leave the final moments without a closure.

I think there are huge emotional moments in "The Wrestler" and it was Robert Siegel from whose fingers this heartbreaking film began and... he indeed created the film which gave Mickey Rourke his "comeback." Robert was nominated for a WGA award in the category of "original screenplay" for the film.

We moved on to a discussion of "Big Fan," the film which Robert wrote and directed and which will premiere at BAM on June 19th as part of the Next Wave Festival. In the film, Patton Oswalt plays Paul Aufiero, a loner who is obsessed with the Giants and he spends much of his time calling in to a sports radio show. For this role, Patton Oswalt won the award for "Best Actor" at the Method Festival. Robert describes Paul as a "Marty" or "Rupert Pupkin"... and perhaps "Big Fan" is the "King of Comedy" of sports movies. I asked Robert if he personally knows any of these "obsessive nerds" and he said he based the character on his imagination. But we have all had experiences which make us lonely and we all share basic human emotions and it is those feelings which Robert hopes to bring to film. "Big Fan" will open on August 28th.

Well, another interview had ended. As darkness was falling, the sidewalks were still packed with people and the streets were crowded with busy traffic congestion. I started thinking as I began the walk home. People weave in and out of our lives.... but I have known Robert for several years, and tonight I continued to be impressed by Robert's sincerity, integrity, openness, and warmth.

addendum: "Big Fan," written and directed by Robert Siegel, was nominated for the 2010 Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award. He is also the writer of Pam & Tommy and Welcome to Chippendales.

OCEAN PARKWAY

OCEAN PARKWAY

This is the place:

Where time seems to stand still

And only the clouds move above

To show those under the mercurial sky

That the weather is changing. 

Decades ago: 

I looked down from a window

In a building high over Ocean Parkway.

I can still taste my aunt’s sweet turkey dinner

On the day the red ripe cranberries rolled 

Over my pink tongue.

That day:

On a bench, 

The reader in a blue suit read his book

As a girl sat in a blue dress on another bench

And watched a rider pass on a blue bike 

Going to a grey building down a shady road.

Now:

So many years later another face 

Looks out of that same window and watches

An old man on a bench read a grey newspaper

As an old lady throws crumbs to feed pigeons.

In the rain:

A car passes going south and then

Slows down to a red light, a red light that 

Only stops movement for a minute

A minute of time on Ocean Parkway. 

Marjorie J. Levine © 2023

12

Yes!

from Le Grand Hotel, Paris 1953

 I was given a group of letters when a friend passed away. This particular letter always emotionally resonated within me and unfolded almost like one sad scene from a film about a marriage long ago that was falling apart. The  husband's desperation, sadness and grief are vividly palpable. 

I suppose at some point down the road this faded letter could become part of a trash pile. But it is too heartfelt for me to allow it to disappear and for all the passionate feelings in it to get lost in a shadowy past. 

So much that is real falls away as time keeps passing but this old faded letter details one man's despair on one day in Paris in 1953 so long ago.  

Click on each page to enlarge for easier reading...

now this

 This (selfie) photo was taken in 2022. I played around with it and changed the colors. 

from ROAD TRIPS

 CODA

This life, 

Lived like a dream through stained glass

In a hazy deciduous forest alone among strangers.

I am the most strange, I am the different outsider:

Feeling like a vacuous soul on an endless ride 

On a forgotten Ferris wheel, high and low, low 

And higher but waiting and left and dropped at the low.

The ride is always on endless bizarre looping roads 

Upon which all unfamiliar sights become visible as 

Mysterious grey sculptures in the rear view mirror.

My insides are weary from traveling through seasons like a 

Naked Amnesiac: the past remembered and easily forgotten.

The ghosts of ancestors are speaking through dense fog,

Cutting through this bittersweet life through which I 

Involuntarily passed without my written consent making

My passages all a crime, an extreme felony.

In time I sat perched all alone seeing possibilities but 

Owning disappointments during touches by many who 

Broke my damaged parts and stole my wail, my shouts

My distressed chiseled shadows and my pale scratched echoes.

This life is now mostly all behind me pushing me to the 

Now where I stand on a precipice not sure which way to go:

To the detour or the curve in the road or a stop sign or

Drive to the dead end or move miles away and live the 

Same way in the same life: this red lighted life. 

And as frightening as the journey has been during 

The vivid Technicolor scenes and after midnights in film noir 

In all the pain and anguish and panic… 

All I really want, all for which I long

Is to stay longer, to remain, and not leave this place.  

--- Marjorie J. Levine

the marjorie cartoons, lulz

ON THE STREET WHERE I LIVE

 At midnight, my street became a movie set for the HBO show Succession.

for Frances

 

SCENES FROM LONG AGO

On Beard Street,

In Kernersville, there are colorful

Wall murals which give glimpses

Into what was, long ago.

I saw ladies in billowing long

Red and white dresses standing

With gentlemen wearing tall hats

All waiting at the railroad station

For family arriving from faraway places.

Soon, they would all step into a horse

Drawn carriage to take a short ride home.

Nobody looked up to see the child

Perched high above who on bleak days

After school would climb to the flat roof

To wait for the trains to pass.

The trains were carrying weary passengers

Traveling to faraway places, and they were

Also going home.

Many years later, she would remember

The sound of the whistle as the trains

Passed and she would speak of the sound

As both sad and mournful,

Perhaps because it always

Strangely reminded

Her of all times past.

--- Marjorie J. Levine

The Way Back

 ongoing.....

ROAD TRIPS, poems

 

SEX, LIES, AND DECADES LATER... THE INTERNET

These greeting cards are pieces of a bittersweet memory from 1970 to 1973, and the messages are quite romantic. I saved the cards to always remember a man I loved named: Lou. But, this was a dark and layered and mysterious "love" because Lou was not just a man... he was my therapist.

Lou looked like Al Pacino in "Serpico." And he was married with several children. I'll be brief...

I began seeing a therapist in about 1970. His office was in Greenwich Village and after just a few sessions I came under the seductive spell of "erotic transference." I grew attached and I was dependent. I fell in love, or thought I had fallen in love. The feelings were not yet mutual. There arrived the day when Lou told me he was moving his practice to Staten Island. I was not ready at all for the separation and I was emotionally devastated. So, I followed him to Staten Island and became a twice a week ferry regular.

The longing for him until my sessions each week was unbearable. I was vaguely aware back then that transference was a common feeling when in analysis. And I had fallen deeply in love with my therapist. Lou sent a real mixed bag of messages; by turns flirting with me and allowing me to believe the feelings were becoming mutual, and at the end of each session he drove me back to catch the ferry. But, in the sessions he would emotionally push me away. He pulled me in and gave me hope and played with my desire, and then confused me by pushing me away with his mercurial whim. He vaguely promised to soon meet me for lunch in Manhattan and then in the next session he told me to find another therapist. I returned home filled with longing and I was confused and desperately unhappy. I was in anguish. I wrote him long love letters in which I poured out my heart.

He sent me greeting cards for Valentine's Day and my birthday... copies hang at this blog (configured with folds to fit.) The saga continued for several years and well.. as it goes with time, the hypnotic spell eventually broke and I ended the "therapy." One day, just like that.

About eight years later, in 1981... I tried Lou's old number and I called. I needed closure. Lou was very excited and happy to hear from me. He was now divorced. He started calling me twice a day. I had to tell him to calm down. So, we had dinner at a Manhattan restaurant. He sat there all pompous and clueless. We went back to my apartment and well... anyway, when he left he hugged me and I knew it was a good-bye forever. He had not changed. He had told me over dinner his experience with me took him to a place where he made a decision to never allow physical contact with a patient in a session ever again. The man was a fast and quick study!

I look back on this episode of my life now and it is totally meaningless. I am not angry. I feel nothing. I know this goes on. I watched "In Treatment." Lou was verbally unprofessional, unethical, and his behavior was inconsistent. He did not know what to do about me and he could not handle and come to terms with his own feelings. Transference is serious and should be handled properly by those who have fallen under it's seductive spell. I think my experience with Lou exacerbated my condition of limerence and I actually never knew I had that until a viewer in my broadcast was listening to one of my many stories and gave it a name. 

I am happy I saved all of Lou's cards because I am reminded of a bittersweet chapter of my life. 

Added after the above: a few years ago, I saw online that Lou had passed away. I called a number I believed could have been his (to offer some form of condolences to whoever answered... I am not a grudge holder and shit happens). A woman answered who told me she was his wife, allowing me to conclude he remarried. After some quick back story to identify myself, I asked her if Lou ever mentioned me. She said no... and as my saga unfolded she was riveted to my story and listened intently. She actually seemed to enjoy hearing it. At the end, she told me her name was also Marjorie. Damn, I am so sad he is gone. I really would have liked to talk to him again. 

a found piece of a letter from long ago

 

Yetta... from Yesteryear

So yeah, I was a teacher for 35 years in NYC and I wrote several books as my real name: Marjorie Levine. Road Trips and Becoming Until (on Amazon) did well.

But, for decades, I tried to "make it" in comedy. But, I was never good enough, or remarkable enough, or lucky enough.

But when social media prospered and live broadcast sites became popular, I decided to try to do shows on the internet so I fired up my computer cam. I became "Yetta Telebenda" and "Cookie Lipschitz" and I was off and running!

A viewer with the nickname "TripCode" became my videographer and he faithfully recorded my shows and uploaded the videos to YouTube. But, I still remained mostly invisible except for a small group of loyal "fans" who I gathered along the way and they became my devoted "cult following." But, fame still eluded me and no casting agents ever called. However, I persisted and through the years found new and creative ways to reinvent myself and keep my content fresh.

I enjoyed developing my new life and making my shows as beautiful as a live memoir in an old silent movie. I fit the pieces of my unique puzzle into a new journey which took me straight to the streets of Broadway. And with pathos, I performed on The Great White Way and said jokes like nobody was listening and mimed like nobody was watching.

And the most bittersweet and sad part... nobody there was. I was all alone on that old and famous avenue and somehow it did not even matter. In my mind's eye, I was famous. For one night, I was a celebrity and as the strangers passed without even giving me a second glance, I hardly even noticed. 

And when my "performance" was over, as I walked home in the crisp night air there was one thought that remained with me. I knew that there could be fulfillment in small scale poignant ways because in that personal magical moment in time, I was shining in my own imagination like a sentimental Broadway star who would sparkle and twinkle on... forever.

watch here:

Yetta from Yesteryear